Someone Listened

Someone listened today.

They heard what I had to say, and what I believed in.

That's such a powerful experience.

Thanks Listener!

Making Decisions

Important decisions are made daily that impact student learning and the experiences of the learning community.  When we sit down to make a decision together it is important to be thorough and clear or else the decision might not match vision, goals and objectives, and the decision might be relayed in ways that are not consistent or clear.  What are the important questions and actions involved in decision making?  I've suggested a short list.

• What is the decision?
• Who is impacted by the decision, and are they included in the decision making?
• What is the decision making process and goal? Is the goal inline with system mission/vision and current cognitive/educational research.
• When will the decisions be made; and how will the decisions be communicated?
• How and when will we evaluate the decisions we make?  How will we revise and rewrite decisions when needed?
• Who will carry out the decisions? Are roles, routines, and structures related to the decision well defined. 

Optimal communities take care when making decisions. They take into account many points of view and keep decisions focused on the identified objectives, goals, and vision.  These organizations keep the decisions in the forefront, and adapt along the way to meet goals.

Making decisions is a critical component of any organization's success, and it's imperative that care, transparency and analysis are involved.

Note: Post updated 5/18/2015

Teach Well

Many advise my teaching including family members, students, administrators, curriculum leaders, special educators, colleagues, state/federal officials, health professionals, ELL teachers, therapists and others.

I listen and integrate their thoughts, ideas, research and efforts.

I read, think, research too.  I observe my students and respond to their needs each day with my best energy, intent and effort.

I synthesize the many, many thoughts, ideas and directives I receive to best educate students.  That's what educators all over the country are doing.

Why I Tirelessly Defend the Use of Technology

You're right, I'd rather spend my time crafting and choreographing wonderful, responsive learning events for students.

And yes, you're right again, if you realize I use tech because I know that tech is embedded in every aspect of our culture, and tech makes learning more accessible, interesting and efficient for many learning goals.

But you're wrong if you think I work tirelessly to defend the use of technology simply because I like tech. I contribute countless hours of my own time defending, studying and employing the use of technology because I believe technology holds promise for student learning, and student learning holds promise for individual lives, communities and the world.

So once again, I'm spending time after school at a meeting to defend and discuss tech integration.  Like so many others, I could just stick to the workbooks both online and paper/pencil.  I could follow old time traditional lessons and practices.  I could ignore the fact that my students are savvy, intelligent, creative individuals who look forward to learning with many wonderful tools including technology.  Most teachers don't want to, or can't, spend countless after school hours defending their work, research and craft so they do what is accepted and not continually debated.  I must say the tech naysayers are wearing me down too.

I really just want to teach and teach well.  I want to incorporate the latest research in cognition, technology and so many other areas to make my classroom a vibrant center of learning where all children have a chance to access tools that help them learn. I don't want to stir things up; I just want to do what's best for children, to improve schools so that children aren't defeated, bored and frustrated, but instead illuminated, excited, enthusiastic and empowered.

I'm sorry to dull my blog with countless posts about defending and debating tech use.  I just can't understand why these debates continue when we could be spending our time crafting, choreographing and imparting wonderful learning endeavors, tools and practice that focus on engaged, student learning.

Thoughts?


Specific Reasons for Defending Tech

• Students use tech all the time in their lives, and apt guidance in this area fosters better use and understanding.
• Tech makes learning accessible in so many ways that learning was inaccessible before.
• Tech contributes to and broadens the learning team--everyone gets to share the information, people near and far.
• Tech takes a lot of the drudgery out of learning, leaving more time for higher level thought and work, work that someday will make a difference in people's lives. 

Self Portrait Poetry Anthology Projects: Adding Poetry Movies

Projects and units continue to evolve as we identify important learning needs and embed new standards.  For the past few years, I have implemented the Self Portrait Poetry Anthology Unit.  It's a rich, poetry unit that teaches children about writer's craft, poetry genre and reading response writing.  The unit also serves to deepen students' self concept as well as understanding and knowledge of each other.

As always, I partake in all aspects of the project as both a learner and a teacher.  Currently students are employing a new aspect of the project which is to create an iMovie about a poem that speaks to them.  I've been thinking about this for quite a while and playing around with the notion.  Then today, i finally completed my model which I've included in this post. I decided to incorporate iMovie for a number of reasons.  First, it's a wonderful medium for sharing at our final poetry celebration.  Also, iMovie gives students lots of opportunity to practice reading poems and building fluency.  And, of course, making movies is enriching and teaches students a lot about multimedia composition, the kind of information resource they access on the Internet to learn.

I imagine that this unit, like all others will continue to evolve through the years. As always if you have any ideas about how to enrich this unit more, please let me know.  Also, if you use the unit and make positive changes, I hope you'll share.


Related Links
Animoto Poems
Student ePortfolios or Writing Books
A Poem that Speaks to Me Video Model
Self Portrait Poetry Unit Google Site